Large Extracellular Vesicles

Biomechanical Characterization of Large Extracellular Vesicles 

In collaboration with Dr. Hyungsoon Im (Center for Systems Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital)

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are membrane-bound vesicles released by cells that carry various biomolecules (proteins, nucleic acids, lipids) and are found in all fluids in human bodies. EVs could provide a non-invasive alternative to tumor biopsies for diagnosing cancer and tracking treatment effectiveness. Before EVs can be used in diagnostic test and other clinical applications, technologies need to be developed that can measure EV characteristics so that we can better understand the information they contain about the cell from which they originated.

Our lab measures the stiffnesses of single EVs that uses non-contact, high-throughput microfluidics. By measuring L-EVs in a natural fluid environment and low-force regime without hard probes and surfaces, we achieve closer agreement with linear mechanical theory and therefore more accurate stiffness measurements. Our recent study of L-EVs from glioblastoma cell lines with and without the lipid-altering IDH1 mutation suggest that our microfluidics technique is capable of distinguishing between L-EV populations that differ in biomolecular composition and therefore structure, which would be useful for clinical diagnostics.

Our long-term goal is better classification of cancers and improved prediction and longitudinal assessment of treatment responses from multiplex assays of single EVs obtained from non-invasive liquid biopsies. 

Research supported by the FY25 UMass Boston Proposal Development Grant, 2023 UMass Boston - Dana Farber/HArvard Cancer Centers U54 Partnership Seed Project.